there was--your mother."

"But I never--knew her?"

"No, child. When they opened the door of Heaven to let you out she
slipped in, poor lamb. An' then you was all your father had left. So
of course he dotes on you. Goodness me, there ain't no end to the fine
things he's goin' ter have you be when you grow up."

"Yes, I know." The boy caught his breath convulsively and turned away.
"I guess I'll go--to dad."

At the end of the hall upstairs was the studio. Dad would probably be
there. Keith knew that. Dad was always there, when he wasn't sleeping
or eating, or out tramping through the woods. He would be sitting
before the easel now "puttering" over a picture, as Susan called it.
Susan said he was a very "insufficient, uncapacious" man--but that was
when she was angry or tried with him. She never let any one else say
such things about him.

Still, dad WAS very different from other dads. Keith had to
acknowledge that--to himself. Other boys' dads had offices and stores
and shops and factories where they worked, or else they were doctors
or ministers; and there was always money to get things with--things
that boys needed; shoes and stockings and new clothes, and candy and
baseball bats and kites and jack-knives.

Dad didn't have anything but a studio, and there never seemed to be
much money. What there was, was an "annual," Susan said, whatever that
was. Anyway, whatever it was, it was too small, and not nearly large